Frame and Panel Wainscoting #1: Research and Resources

Those of you who follow the blog on twitter know that I have taken a couple of weekends off from the slant front desk to complete work on a home improvement project that has been on my to-do list for most of the year. At the beginning of this year I laid hardwood floors throughout the house and have been steadily (but slowly) working on the trim work.

In our formal living & dinning my wife and I decided to put up frame and panel wainscoting. Wainscoting in its traditional definition is actually a tongue and groove paneling or “beadboard” look but the term gets used now for just about any type of wood paneling that covers the lower third up through two thirds of a wall (in some cases).

I still have one more weekend of work to complete my project but I wanted to use this weeks post to provide a few resources that I used during my research and design phase. I know a lot of hobbyist woodworkers get started by performing home improvement projects like this very one around the house; it is certainly how I got started!

The first resource I used was episode 613 of the New Yankee Workshop 'Wall Paneling'. Norm’s no nonsense approach is great. He goes through a number of different configurations from beadboard, to raised panel, to full wall paneling.

The next resource I used was an article out of Fine Homebuilding (August/September 2004 issue) A Simple Approach to Raised-Panel Wainscot, by Gary Striegler Gary also has a no-nonsense approach, using a pocket screwed frame that is then attached to the wall, panels that are milled smaller than the frames and attached separately, next a mitered border covers the gap between the panel and frame. Norm uses a very similar approach is his video, and this is the approach I ultimately took, although I used flat rather than raised panels.

The final resource I took advantage of was Google Image’s. Searching for images of what others have done or what professional shops are offering gave me a lot of ideas. I recommend you always take a look through Google images for any woodworking project you are considering you might find an idea you had not considered before!

share yours…If you have installed wall paneling or know of an internet resource describing how to install wall paneling leave a comment pointing to it for everyone else.